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Here's an article from National Restaurant News talking about how food trucks are stealing business from QSR restaurants. Not sure if we're seeing at here but I'm sure it will provide much fodder for arguments.

Mark R. wrote:Here's an article from National Restaurant News talking about how food trucks are stealing business from QSR restaurants. Not sure if we're seeing at here but I'm sure it will provide much fodder for arguments.

I dont like the term "steal" as it implies that the customers are owned by the QSRs. But, otherwise, yeah I can see that happening. I always thought the slow food B&M restaurants complaining about food trucks were being whiny. They arent in direct competition. Fast food is.

In other words, they want to be protected from competition? I've never understood that. I can see an argument for shutting down unfair competition, like false advertising and such, but for one sector to ask protection just because another is cutting into sales? I'm not so sure about that.

Mark R. wrote:Here's an article from National Restaurant News talking about how food trucks are stealing business from QSR restaurants. Not sure if we're seeing at here but I'm sure it will provide much fodder for arguments.

I don't have a dog in this fight but I can acknowledge there are arguments on both sides that extend beyond which one has better food. Should a food truck be allowed to set up on a taxpayer-funded street in front of a restaurant whose owner is paying rent or a mortgage and property taxes? I can see why the brick-and-mortar guy might be pissed. On the other hand, how many brick-and-mortar people got started catering or operating a food truck and are they just trying to keep the new guy down?

Trucks are very likely paying off a loan for the truck, property tax on the truck, and for gasoline and vehicle maintenance. Also, they can only park on the street for four hours. While the restaurant can be open all day, the truck has to move somewhere else after four hours. Also, if it's cold, or raining, the truck does virtually no business. Many trucks park during the winter and therefore have no income for months. A truck also has quite limited storage and thus there is a limit on how much food it is possible to push out the window. There's no walkin or storage room on a truck for extra product when it gets busy. What you've got to sell is what you've got to sell.

Richard S. wrote:I don't have a dog in this fight but I can acknowledge there are arguments on both sides that extend beyond which one has better food. Should a food truck be allowed to set up on a taxpayer-funded street in front of a restaurant whose owner is paying rent or a mortgage and property taxes? I can see why the brick-and-mortar guy might be pissed. On the other hand, how many brick-and-mortar people got started catering or operating a food truck and are they just trying to keep the new guy down?

Its a public street. Food truck owners are members of the public. As long as parking is legal in that spot, I dont see the problem with it. Food truck, random guy, whatever, what does it matter who is parked in the parking spot?

given the diversity of markets, and within markets, this seems to be a misapplication of a survey designed for corporate bean counters.

I'm assuming it comes from NPD's annual "Report on Eating Patterns in America".

whatever the survey may be the reporting seems skewed.

food trucks aren't new - depending on the locale. I was patronizing a burrito wagon way back in 1992. the trend is newer and the hype is newer but not the basic form and function and role(s) in the market place.

maps and phone apps (etc) combined with good product and consumer awareness might lead some to plan in advance to eat at a truck versus going to a taco bell, asian joint or panera. might. That'd be pretty specific and pretty local.

As a consumer it's pretty stark to understand how the corporate / hospitality-industrial complex does its best to Temple Grandon us into the food chute. There are some choice words from Bill Hicks on this general theme.

Joel F wrote:food trucks aren't new - depending on the locale. I was patronizing a burrito wagon way back in 1992.

Bruce Ucan's Big Blue Taco Truck? The progenitor of Mayan Cafe got started as a food truck primarily serving Latino roofing crews in subdivision developments around that time, and it wasn't long before well-off Anglos started following it around, and it evolved into the several iterations of bricks-and-mortar Mayan Gypsy/Cafe, one of the first entries in NuLu before they called it NuLu. The rest, as they say, is history.

Joel F wrote:nope. this was in California. same principle though. the food truck would pull into various light industrial sites to feed folks at break times and lunch. they ran a route to feed the working people.

Well, it's not quite the same as food trucks, but I can remember working at a regional newspaper in the LA area (Glendale/Pasadena) back in the '70s and heading out at midmorning for a snack from the "roach coach." Those things go back for decades! They were well-named, too. But it's not really a valid comparison since food trucks are set up with professional, inspected restaurant kitchens rather than a guy with a stool and boxes of packaged donuts and cokes and stuff.

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